


Walk the Mountains High

by duckmoles



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Homesickness, Kaer Morhen, Road Trips, Witchers Have Feelings (The Witcher)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:31:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23436814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckmoles/pseuds/duckmoles
Summary: Sword half-buried inside the neck of an archgriffin, caked in gore and feathers, Geralt realizes he needs to go home.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	Walk the Mountains High

Sword half-buried inside the neck of an archgriffin, caked in gore and feathers, Geralt realizes he needs to go home.

Geralt is not a man for revelations, normally, having left the brooding and melancholia somewhere along with his humanity, too many decades and heartbreaks ago. He's always been a man for action, and his staggering thoughts of clarity come the same. with one low grunt, wrenching his arm downwards, the great eagle head of the griffin falls to the ground. It bounces, rolls, and stops at the edge of the rocky cliff. The griffin's body collapses, a small wave of dust rising up with it that has Geralt wrinkling his nose.

The beady eyes of the head stare at Geralt, as if in judgment. "What're you looking at," Geralt mutters to himself, wiping his sword off and sheathing it.

He decides, somewhere between dutifully picking up the griffin head, careful of the slow stream of blood dripping out, and wrapping it up, that it's the mountains that have him feeling so homesick. Something about the way the air thins, has him panting for air, his face and lips dry, the way the cliff where the griffin had made its home juts out, overlooking the village that had put out the contract in the first place. It's early yet, summer not even over, but Geralt can feel the early treacheries of autumn creeping in, the leaves already starting to change color.

He hasn't been back home in Kaer Morhen in years, almost a decade now. A lot can change in ten winters. He wonders who's still alive. He wonders if they all think he's dead.

Roach, ever reliable, waits for him on the path, chewing on the few pieces of greenery that's made its home on the crags. She snorts as he draws near, her nostrils widening. She probably smells the rot on him, the giant bloody griffin head at his belt. She's more than used to it. Geralt takes one of his gloves off and rubs his hand down the side of her flank, and she tosses her head slightly, bright wide eye staring at him. She's getting on in years, Geralt thinks. Come next spring, he'll probably have to find another roach, another horse who'll come when he calls and doesn't flinch at the sight of a warg. He sighs. 

The trail down seems less dangerous than it did coming up. Geralt chalks it up to the fact that going down, he’s not chasing a griffin halfway up a mountain, hastily preparing hybrid oil, dodging swoops and giant eagle talons. The head bounces against its hip with every sway and bump in the road. 

The villagers aren’t grateful, but they never are. The alderman near vomits when Geralt opens his bag to show the griffin head, and practically tosses the coin in his face, which works out pretty well for Geralt given that it turns out to be 100 more than they’d negotiated. He leaves as soon as he’s able. 

He had asked Dandelion once, after saving him once again from an angry mob near Vizima, if he had met ever other witchers on the road. Dandelion, in his usual manner, hadn’t given as much a straight answer as launched into an impromptu solo musical number that, at the end of several hours of traveling and tearing through far too much of Geralt’s liquor - that he used for replenishing his potions, mind you - had ended with Dandelion shaking his head no, not really, but would Geralt introduce him because that was a ballad waiting to happen -  _ The Tale of Two Witchers _ , that would sell like nothing else! 

It hadn’t been surprising, but Geralt couldn’t help his disappointment. There were so few of them now, but it was a small continent. He’d bumped into harder people to find before. 

Geralt finds himself heading north, despite his better judgment. He takes contracts on the way, moving through Cintra and through Verden at a steady pace. It gets colder, and with it the people that he passes. In Novigrad, replenishing his stocks of food, a passing peasant spits in his face, and Geralt grits his teeth. It’s not a sin worth rusting his sword for. 

His first time in Novigrad, he had been overwhelmed. Fresh on the Path, nothing except his sword and his medallion to call his own, he hadn’t thought a city like this existed. Despite everything, there had been wonder in the way he had slowly driven his horse through the streets, stopping to stare at at a wandering merchant’s goods, bartering for a sweet-smelling pastry that had tasted like the rare treats the older witchers had brought back from the Path in the winters, indulging the young witchers-to-be with their tales as they gorged on the evidence of their travels. 

It rains in Novigrad the entire time he’s there, and he soaks through an entire pair of boots. Zoltan is kind enough to let him room at the tavern for free, though he jokes that Geralt’s more than paying for his rent with his body - “I’m just saying, a witcher at the bar does wonders for keeping the rabble out,” Zoltan justifies, grinning and wholly unrepentant. 

The thing about Zoltan - he knows when he can pry and not be hanged for it. His third day there, nursing a bottle of Temerian Rye, Zoltan siddles up and asks, “You can’t leave me hanging here, Geralt. If you’re in Novigrad for business, I’d like to know.” 

Geralt grunts, stares into his liquor. “Not witcher business,” he says. 

“Not even Geralt business?” 

Geralt leveys a look that he knows would be intimidating to any other patron at the bar, but which Zoltan only looks heartily amused by. “Not even Geralt business,” he says. “Just passing through, if you believe me. Here to stock up on supplies.” 

Zoltan faces the crowd, leaning up against the bar counter. “Supplies? You loading up for a long journey?”

“Of a sort.” Geralt polishes off the bottle and leans back in his chair, thinking over his response. “I was thinking of going back to Kaer Morhen.” 

“Hell,” Zoltan says. “Back to the motherland. How long’ve you been away?” 

“Ten years,” Geralt replies. “Or thereabouts.” It gets hard to keep track, after a while, but a witcher’s memory is sharp, no matter how much they wish it wasn’t.

“Been a while, then. You miss it?”

Zoltan knows something about being away from home. Novigrad is a far cry from the mountains of Mahakam, after all. 

The barmaid slides Geralt another bottle wordlessly, which he takes with gusto. It takes more than a bit of alcohol to get witcher constitution drunk. “I grew up there,” Geralt replies, in lieu of anything else. 

Geralt doesn’t remember a time before he first stepped foot into the Blue Mountains, his first murky memories being a soft Igni-caused flame and the sound of steel on steel. It’s home, for no other reason than it’s the only place he’s ever called one. He had another life before, he sometimes thinks, one before the grueling Path, the screams of young witcher boys undergoing the Trials. In his rare, most bitter moments, he thinks it may have been even a happy one.

But he’s no Lambert, clinging so tight to scraps of normalcy that it burns. He’s a witcher, plain and simple. There’s no other path he could take.

He buys a round for both him and Zoltan, and when Dandelion stumbles in the early hours of the morning, buys him drinks too. 

Geralt sets off from Novigrad the next day. If he rides fast, he’ll just barely be able to make it through Kaer Morhen valley before the snows block off the pass. 

From Novigrad, it’s a simple matter of following the river into Kaedwen and into the mountains. In Flotsam, Geralt hunts down a werewolf and then an entire castle full of wraiths, because he can’t keep his head out of anyone’s business. He avoids Ard Carraigh entirely, skirting around its edges, because he knows if he stops in the city he’ll inevitably find himself entangled in some political trifle or another, and he’s already running behind.

He wonders who’ll be there. Vesemir, of course, because the old bastard is immortal. Eskel, as steady as the sunrise and sunset. Lambert, because he’s too stubborn to die. Gardis, maybe, though last Geralt saw him, he was struggling with a withering arm from some unfortunate curse. If Lambert comes, maybe he’ll bring that Cat of his, Aiden something or other. It’s always hard to say. Seems like there are less and less of them every season. 

Geralt doesn’t feel the temperature much, but he stops at a little village at the foot of the mountain for something warm for Roach before setting off proper into the valley. The villagers are wary but kind enough; this close to Kaer Morhen, they’re more than accustomed to witchers wandering in and out throughout the year for supplies, even if the need for hefty supply trips have been diminished by the fact that there’s no need to feed several dozen growing monster hunters to be. 

“You’ll have to hurry to get through the pass before the snow,” a merchant says while she’s tallying up Geralt’s coin. “It’ll come down before the week’s over, I’ll tell you that. A few of your kind passed through a few weeks ago. Don’t know how you stand it up there, all that cold and slag.” 

Geralt takes the horse blanket she hands over. “Any chance you remember who moved through here?” 

She hums. “One of them was about your height, a nasty scar on his face. Bought a few goats from Marge. Seen him last winter too.” She taps her fingers on her chin, as if thinking. “The week before that, one with a hairline like -” she makes a sweeping gesture over the top of her head. 

Eskel and Lambert, then. Still kicking, despite everything. 

“Thank you for your help,” Geralt says. 

“My pleasure,” she says, sounding genuine. “For all the rumors, you witchers bring wonders for the business. My great uncle still remembers the winters where a horde of you would pass through, spending hundreds of coin and keeping us fed for seasons to come.” She shakes her head. “It’s a damn shame.”

Geralt grunts. It’s rare that he thinks about the massacre, when he’d come home to find the rivers still pink with blood, the bones of his compatriots scattered across the barren ground, a gruesome caricature of snow. Vesemir had welcomed him and the few that had survived by being out on the Path with a weary sigh and eyes heavier than he’d ever seen. They’d spent the entire winter scrubbing the floors, clearing out the bodies. There are still rooms that reek of iron, where they hadn’t been able to get the blood out. 

“Thank you,” Geralt says again, dipping his head slightly. The horse blanket feels warm, clutched close to his chest. 

The Killer is as harsh as ever, the disuse having made the trail only more treacherous with time. More than once Geralt has to slow Roach, get off to help her navigate a particularly tricky stretch of road, where one misstep could send both rider and horse to their doom. More than once, a freshly-anointed witcher had gone through all the necessary rituals, all the potions and training and mutations, only to misjudge his step on a wobbly ledge and fall to the cliffs beneath. 

Ahead of him, the mountains loom, and as Geralt keeps moving, as the cold settles in around him and snow starts gently falling, he can see the black stone of Kaer Morhen rise in the distance, as foreboding as the first time. When he first set out, when he had gone as far away as he could, following generations of his brethren’s footpaths, he had looked back at the only home he had ever known. It was early spring, and the grass and trees were just budding. From there, Kaer Morhen had seemed not the birthplace of nightmares that it was, but as noble and gentle as a fairy tale. From here, it only makes Geralt ache. 

He arrives at the gates when the snow has truly started falling, the kind of dazzling blizzards he could only ever find here. Geralt blinks snowflakes away from his vision, and slowly guides Roach into the stables. It’s warm, well-kept, and the other horses snort as he arrives. There’s a Kaedweni war horse that Geralt can only assume is Eskel’s, and a pair of sleek black Zerrikanian racers that snort and toss their heads as Geralt guides Roach into the stalls next to them. There’s ritual in checking over Roach, finding her some water to drink and making sure she has food. A preparation of sorts. 

At this hour, the others are probably drinking by now. They’ll have leftovers from dinner, because they always do. Geralt will walk in, be greeted with cheerful ribbing and warmth and a stern, concerned lecture from Vesemir, and he’ll be able to take off his armor, the careful weight of it gone from his back, at least until the spring. From here, he can already see the light from the fire in one of the windows, a flash of Quen that’s probably Eskel showing off again. Geralt sighs, gives Roach one last pat on her flank. 

Home sweet home.   
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> can you believe how little i know about the witcher i have played exactly half of the witcher 3 and seen only gifs of the show. on the plus side, i have read a lot of the wiki and "kaer morhen" on the witcher 3 soundtrack makes me want to cry every time i hear it ;_;


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